Abstract
An agreed-upon action plan is necessary by national health funding and research agencies over the next decade to lower the number of new cases of neurodegenerative disease. Many of the biomarkers currently used clinically for many neurodegenerative diseases are inadequate, and have inherent limitations in regard to sensitivity and specificity. There is a need for newer and better biomarkers of neurodegenerative disease that can be accurately quantitated in cerebrospinal fluid, blood, saliva, or urine. Biomarkers hold promise for enabling more effective drug development in neurodegenerative diseases and a more personalized medicine approach. There is a need for biomarkers to enable presymptomatic diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders that would allow early treatment strategies to be instituted and evaluated in slowing or preventing development of the disease. In clinical trials of new potential disease-modifying drugs, careful selection of patients with defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and recruiting patients and assigning them to treatment groups to avoid possible bias, is paramount. This book presents advances in the medical application of neurofunctional, structural, and molecular biomarkers through innovative neuromethods development.